Tuesday, September 6, 2011

A lot of interesting garden stories have crossed my desk lately and I wanted to share some of them with you:

University of Maryland Launches Beehive Project in City Cemetery: Just
inside the locked gate of Old St. Paul's Cemetery on Martin Luther King
Boulevard, honeybees zip in and out of a white hive perched on cinder
blocks. They flit past weathered headstones for a signer of the
Declaration of Independence, the hero of the 1814 defense of Fort
McHenry, a Civil War general and other long-gone luminaries.

The hive, put there by staff and students at the University of Maryland,
Baltimore, is one of the latest — and certainly one of the more unusual
— installments in the growing pastime of backyard beekeeping.Read MoreRain Gardens: A Practical Solution for Water Pollution: Rain
is basically clean — until it passes along roads, businesses and
communities. As water runs off roofs, paved surfaces and chemically
treated lawns, it can pick up spilled gasoline, oil, road salt,
fertilizer, pet waste and other pollutants.

If the contaminated water flows into ditches and storm drains,
there's an increased risk for the pollutants to reach natural waterways.
In fact, rainwater runoff has become the fastest-growing source of
pollution to the Chesapeake Bay. Read MoreConservation Garden Blossoms in Wheaton Triangle: The
Wheaton Triangle Conservation Landscape Garden, which non-profit
GreenWheaton finished in June, serves an important purpose. Organizers
designed the garden with soil, flowers and grasses that soak up
potentially harmful run-off and prevent excess rain water from flowing
into storm drains and a nearby stream. Read MoreDemonstration Herb Garden – University of Maryland Extension (photos and plant list)Men Enjoy Their Gardening Club – Gardening isn't just for women, as the Men's Garden Club of Frederick County will assure you.